My name is Ryan Pyle. I am a Canadian born freelance photographer documenting China. I am based in Shanghai, China. I work for leading Editorial clients around the world. I have recently taking up motorcycle adventure riding. You can follow me on Facebook, Twitter as well as www.ryanpyle.com & www.mkride.com.

Monday, May 25, 2009

University unemployment across China is a scary thing. Let me explain why in this space. (Picture above, a migrant worker walks through a job market in Dongguan, China)

Graduation has past, and the prospects of finding employment for China's 6.1 million graduates (a number that will increase to 7m next year) is bleak. How bleak is it? Well for starters engineers are applying for jobs at coffee shops and a large amount of students are taking up an offer by the government to work three years in the countryside in a local government position, in turn the government pays off your University fees. After spending a lot of money, time and energy moving to the cities to complete their education, many from this years crop of students are headed back to rural China. But can they be happy with that? Is there a choice?

This downturn in China is severe, don't be mistaken. While the GDP figures might be massaged to look impressive things within the borders are no where near as robust as they were in 2007 and the first half of 2008. But is that such a bad thing? My wife runs a small business in China and in 2007 she was furious at how she would spend her time and energy training new graduates only to have them jump to other companies every 4-6 months, that was possible then as the cities were booming, and people were always in demand. These days are different, she hasn't had an employee leave in over a year now. My reason for bringing this up is that for the last 2 decades no one has seen a bad year, or even a bad month in many cases. Jobs were plentiful and salary increases were regular. Now things have changed. The employed are doing everything they can to keep their jobs and everyone knows people who are looking for work; and looking forward this, I feel, is a healthy experience and it will create an employment pool that respects their jobs, their employers and the economic environment much more than before. When China does emerge from this downturn there are a lot of people, including myself, that believe the country will emerge much stronger than it was before.

Now without looking too far ahead, what about the ranks of the unemployed now? Without being a overly negative about the situation the government is responding well to a crisis which, in their eyes, could lead to civil unrest at some stage. Campuses have occasionally, in the past, been places where emotions run high; be it during the Tiananmen days of the late 80s, to the NATO bombing of the Chinese Embassy in the late 90s, or the Anti-Japanese protests that swept the country in 2005. And government officials know and understand this. That's why they are offering some graduates up to USD7,300 in loans to help them start their own businesses, which could see a mini-boom in entrepreneurial activity in the coming years; but that is optimistic.

After watching so many university graduates before them become soaked up by China's rapidly growing, and increasingly dynamic economy; this years group can't feel but left out in the cold. Where will their fancy titles, name cards, cars, and apartments come from? How will they join the ranks of China's mass consumers if they can't pull in an income?

This is, as a photographer, something that I would like to keenly document. However actually photographing inside a job market is often frowned up as a foreign photographer and I've been kicked out of many before. But those shots you see of thousands of students pushing and shoving through the entrance of a job fair do really occur, and the scene at the job markets will most likely become more intense in the coming months as more and more graduates fight for fewer and fewer resources.

The big question remains as to what the unemployed might do? Will they choose to under-employ themselves in the countryside? Will they begin looking at ways in which their government is failing them and demand change? Only time will tell, I know I'll be watching.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

I recently read something in the media back in April that made me stop and think. The article made a specific reference to the two jobs of Mayor and Party Secretary for the city of Linfen, which have both been vacant for six months, in coal rich Shanxi province in Central China.

First a bit of background. Linfen is a particularly nasty place (which I have no pictures of!). It ranked #1 on CNN's most polluted cities in the world list in 2008. It's a coal, cement and pulp and paper kind of place. In one interview a television correspondent asked a woman, who was holding a young child, if she knew the sky's color is actually blue; she had no idea, she believe the sky's natural color was gray. She'd never been outside of Linfen.

While Linfen is particularly dirty it is also known for lapses in safety and environmental planning. The township has been the site of several massive accidents in the past few years from coal mine collapses, which kill miners, to massive reservoirs of toxic sludge breaking their dam and engulfing entire villages. For the last few years the job of mayor or party secretary in Linfen has been a game of musical chairs, no one seems to last more than a year before a major environmental "incident" causes several of the main leadership to resign or be fired.

Now the inner workings of the Communist Party is a black box to outsiders like myself. We have virtually no idea what is going on and the power politics involved. For years it was my assumption, and perhaps the assumption of much of the media that I was reading, that Party Secretaries of townships and counties were local, and heavily involved in business. To contrast that the provincial Party Secretaries are from different provinces and tend to rotate every 3-5 years.

So if local Party Secretaries can operate in area's they have grown up in, and have at their disposal vast powers and business connections why is it that the job of Party Secretary and Mayor for Linfen is still vacant, six month after the last environmental incident claimed the last duo? Perhaps the power of local Party Secretaries and Mayors are no match for the power politics being played by coal and cement producers throughout the province. My best guess is that coal mine owners and cement factory owners bypass local governments and townships and report straight to provincial Party Secretaries, who in turn for their loyalty are allowed to work freely throughout the province.

That would mean that a lot of local town and county officials are caught between a rock and a hard place, unable to introduce change and or safety standards, if that was the case, and completely responsible for anything that happens on their turf; for which they would have absolutely no control over. But surely the vacant posts in question would yield back handers and opportunities to exercise influence for financial gain; but with all that being frowned upon at the moment from Beijing, it's clear that some government posts are just completely unattractive. I never would have thought that.

Is anyone reading in to this situation differently? Anyone heard anything else on the topic?

Sorry this post has little to do with photography, but I tend to find these sorts of political plays in China incredibly interesting.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Today marks the one year anniversary of the earthquake that struck China's southwestern Sichuan province last year. Above is a slide show of some of my work from my coverage of that natural disaster.

I spent a lot of time in the earthquake zone last year and I didn't blog at all, and I feel a lot of guilt for that. In a way I feel as though I left myself down. I always feel I have a contribution to make, either visually or via blogging, but I was suffering from some intense exhaustion during my quake coverage. Read on and you'll get a better idea of what I was witnessing, and my personal experiences, covering the natural disaster.

PRE-QUAKEI was in the air when the actual earthquake happened, flying from Shanghai to Beijing for an assignment. When I landed, about 30 minutes after the quake had hit, I immediatly got a phone call from my friend in Shanghai telling me what had happened.

When the quake actually occurred it took a few hours for the full extent of the damage to be revealed. I remember getting to my hotel in Beijing and turning on the news and hearing reports of 10 people dead and damage limited. I didn't think too much of the disaster at that stage, as these small quakes happen all the time in China. So I went out and shot my assignment without given the quake a second thought.

When I got back to the hotel after dinner that night I flipped back on the news and reports were still coming back saying that the damage was much more severe than thought, and this 8.0 magnitude quake is thought to have demolished a hand full of towns and at least 20,000 people. Things had gotten serious very quickly.

To be honest I should have known better. China's Sichan province is the countries most populous province with around 90m people. I've been there several times and have seen the poor quality construction in the towns and villages as well as the mountains and rivers that dominate the landscape. If a strong quake were to hit, things would be disastrous. And it now appeared to be a major disaster.

Sitting there in front of the TV that night I decided that I was going to get myself to Sichuan as quickly as I could. I began contacting a lot of the editors I knew who might be interested in covering the event; but there was little interest initially. While my emails fell mainly on deaf ears, as they often do, I decided not to let that deter me. I actually had a few emails from editors telling me that the quake was so small that they wouldn't cover it at all in their magazines, but in the weeks later they actually ended up running full features and cover shots from the disaster. I had a very strong feeling, given the dense population and the mountainous landscape, that this would just continue to get worse as the days unfolded. I also felt strongly that given my experience in covering China and my style of photography that I was really in a strong position to cover this natural disaster.

That night I slept poorly. Woke up early and flew to Shanghai to pick up more equipment and grab some rain gear, because Sichuan province in May, June and July can really rain down. I wanted to be ready for anything. Upon trying to get a flight ticket from Shanghai to Chengdu on 2 day of the earthquake I realized that I would have to sit on my hands for another day, flights were impossible to get and even flights to ChongQing, a large nearby city, were full. So I sat and worked through on a map the area hit and how to get around in the region. I found it near impossible to sit idle, but that was what I did. I tried to rest up, because I knew when I landed things would become overwhelming very quickly.

On day three I was able to get a ticket to Chengdu, the capital city of Sichuan province, and the largest city near the epicenter. By the time I was getting on the plane, a lot had happened. One the first day of the earthquake the Chinese government had issued a notice to all domestic media indicating that they were not allowed to cover the earthquake; which was a very odd thing to do. My understanding of why they did this is still not clear. All I know is that this government request was not listened to. The domestic media in China were on the scene very quickly and provided a lot of excellent coverage within the first 72hrs of the disaster. Also, Wen Jiabao, China's PM, was in Sichuan, and in heavily affected areas, within 24hrs. He was there putting on a strong face and showing that the government and the military was in control of the situation and wouldn't rest until every person was rescued and re-housed. It was a brave face indeed, but his presence on the ground was a huge PR win for the party; which often appears aloof of hardship in the countryside.

My experience in the quake zone was difficult, both professionally and personally. And I'll try to walk you through that here in this space.

INSIDE THE QUAKE ZONEI had arrived in Chengdu at around 1030am on the 3rd day of the quake. I had booked a room at the Holiday Inn, which was a cheap and comfy little hotel, near the airport in Chengdu. My plan was to sleep every night in Chengdu, where it was safe, and make long day trips out in to affected areas. That way I could file every night and at least I wouldn't have to worry about my hotel collapsing from an aftershock.

My driver and local assistant met me at the hotel and within an hour of arriving we were off to Juyuan and Dujiangyan. These two towns were heavily hit areas just an hour or so from Chengdu and they were where most of the quake coverage had come from already.

By the time I had arrived in Juyuan much of the chaos and commotion had disappeared and there was nothing left but a shattered building and some curious onlookers standing around. It was overwhelming to see how this 4 story building had just collapsed on to itself, nothing was left standing except the stairwell, you can see the image HERE. Classroom after classroom folded on to themselves, blackboards still had lesson plans from the time the quake hit. Children's notebooks, shoes and clothing were scattered all over the place. The mood was heavy. I visited and shot several schools and also worked my way through the back alleyways and neighborhoods that had fallen to pieces.

It was on that first day that I was able to capture one of, in my opinion, my strongest image from my quake coverage which you can see HERE. I felt it was my strongest image because it showed the extent of the damage and conveyed the hopeless of the situation, with a young boy wandering through a completely smashed lane-way, alone. The vantage point were I was standing was in fact a collapsed building that I had climbed to the top of, the time was just around dusk. That night I got back to the hotel and frantically edited and got everything uploaded and captioned and began sending it out to several magazines and newspapers that I work regularly for. But there were still no takers. I was on my own this time.

My second day I was becoming a bit more confident about being in the quake zone and decided to get up at the crack of dawn and do a long day trip to Beichuan, about 3hrs from Chengdu. I remember the drive up because for most of the highway drive you couldn't tell that a massive quake had hit. But the last 40km or so before we arrived at the city, as we twisted through the mountains, the damage was incredible. Massive boulders had broken away from the hills and left giant sized potholes in the roads, some rocks had broken loose and destroyed homes. There were landslides visible throughout the region. I wondered how many people had died trapped below the mountain that had broken away.

We had to park about 5km from the actual town of Beichuan because they wanted to keep the roads clear for rescue vehicles. So my driver parked and I made my way in on foot. There was a security checkpoint but I rolled right on through with no document checks, at this stage in the disaster the military and authorities were very welcoming to foreign photographers and writers. They really believed in the need to show the outside world what had happened to this little remote region of China. It was a real breakthrough moment for me personally because, after having so much interference to deal with on the job, it was so refreshing to just work freely and be able to get close to the military and the rescue efforts. It was a working environment that I had never witnessed before, and it was one that I haven't been in since.

The road to Beichuan is a winding one and you approach the city from above, before following the road down in to the valley where the city/town actually is. I remember walking in with massive groups of security staff and rescue workers and my first glimpse of the city itself was so overwhelming (see HERE) I had to sit down and take it all in. The mountains surrounding the town had all broken away and much of the town was covered in a landslide. There were few buildings left standing and I'd never seen anything like it. Walking along the road in to the city there was an army base and a morgue to the left, rows and rows of body bags were lined up. Upon entering the city I followed the rescue workers and found one of their bases and decided to try to document this aspect of the recovery effort. On day four they were still finding people alive. There was one image I was very fond of from these moments and it might allow you to understand the access I was granted when I was working that day. The military rescue workers were all huddled up having a meeting and I was able to stand in and listen and shoot as the group leaders mapped out their strategy (see HERE), it was access I didn't dream was possible. For actual images of the recovery efforts see the slide show above.

From there I began climbing up crumbled buildings and I was pretty nervous at first. There were cracks in the rubble and there was smoke filtering up from some places. I couldn't image how many fires or gas leaks might have been below us. I stayed close to a search and rescue team because they looked like they knew what was going on; and when I talked with one of the soldiers he mentioned that it was his second day here and reckoned I should just stay with them. So I did. When we reached the top of the rubble we had an incredible bird's eye (See HERE) view of the destruction.

As I walked down and made my way around the city I was amazed at how destructive mother nature can be. There were bodies in the streets, rescue workers hammering away on roofs trying to get through the top layer so they could probe inside looking for survivors. When I left Beichuan that night I sat in the car for three hours on the long drive back to Chengdu editing and captioning my work from that day in the back seat. I had a lot of difficulty associating my images with the real life that they represented.

On a personal note, for the first few days of working in the quake zone mobile phone access was patchy because the quake had caused so many of the phone towers to collapse and fall. So there were large stretches of time I was unable to communicate with my wife in Shanghai, and I can remember that being a particularly painful process for her; and me to a lesser extent. After about 4 or 5 days I was able to keep regular contact with her because various repairs had been made. It was much better when I was able to exchange even simple text messages with her at various times of the day to let her know I was safe. It was a terribly emotional experience documenting these schools that had collapsed, these families that had been torn apart and much of the time I couldn't image what my feelings would be if I had lost a child in a school or my wife in a quake.

My third day in the quake zone was an effort to rest and recover after two very exhausting days I decided to self assign myself to look in to the Chengdu #1 People's Hospitals. It is where all the most severely injured survivors where being taken and I was amazed, again, at how open and welcoming the doctors and hospital staff were when I began shooting survivors. I spent time focusing on both adults (See HERE) and children who had survived school collapses (See HERE). It was a tearful day as I spent time with children telling me their story of how there were tossed out of school windows, falling in one case three stories to the ground, as the buildings began to shake; which was the only reason they were still alive. The physiological challenges that many of these children would have in their future were very apparent in the little time I spent with them. Almost all of the children had no idea where there parents were. An aunt or uncle was with them at the hospitals. In many cases their entire school had collapsed and almost all of their friends were killed. It was a difficult day, but an eye opening experience to what the survivors where going through.

My forth day in the quake zone was very much wasted as I had planned to visit the Mianyang Football Stadium, apparently housing some 25,000 homeless quake victims. But I had heard a rumor from some other reporters that they had sealed off the place because there were afraid of illness or disease striking the people in their weakened condition. So I had called up a friend working for an NGO and told them that I had a car and I could offer to fill it up with medical supplies and food and take it up to the Stadium, where I knew they had operations. They had agreed the night before but in the morning when it was time to go they opted not to use my wheels in order to maintain independence from the journalists that were covering the disaster. I thought that strange considering I had given a fair amount of lifts to doctors and even military soldiers on trips to Juyuan and Beichuan. So, thinking I was unable to make it to the stadium without the help of an NGO I opted to visit Shifang, a city about 2hrs from Chengdu that had been badly hit. But when I arrived it realized that it had been hit but not nearly as bad as Beichuan, which was flattened. There was tent city on the main football pitch in the city (See HERE) but it mainly consisted of people who were affraid to return to their homes, not people who had lost their homes.

But when I did return back to the hotel that night I was amazed to see all the guests at the Holiday Inn sitting out in the parking lot. I had no idea what to think until the manager told me that the government had issued an earthquake alert and we all had to sleep outside tonight. I was stunned. I had just been on the road for about 10 hours and all I wanted was to file and get some food. But now, because the government could all of a sudden predict earthquakes, I had to sleep in the parking lot. F*ck that. I snuck past the manager and took the stairs to the forth floor, collected my bags and just left (the bastards billed me for an extra night). I made a bee-line for the Shangri-la in the center of Chengdu where most of the foreign media were staying. Luckily when I arrived that night no one was sleeping in the parking lot. There was no earthquake and no aftershock that night but the town was sent in to an absolute frenzy by the quake warning and there was a mass exodus of the city, which has about 8 million people. It was bizarre and strange and all of the chaos was completely unnecessary.

While all this chaos was happening, and I was switching to a more sane hotel establishment, I was contacted by a writer who wanted to hire me for a job the next day. Awesome. It would, after working for 4 days in the quake zone, be my first assignment. My nightly emails to editors with my stories and links to images from my day didn't pick up much notice at all, and I had a real difficult time getting response from people as to whether I might be able to cover something for them; but there was nothing but silence. I really felt like I was out on my own for this one. To make matters worse when I woke up on my fifth day my sure fire job that had been organized the night before had fallen through and they had left me hanging until almost noon the next day, meaning that much of the day was wasted and I hadn't had a well thought out back up plan. The publication in question mentioned that I wasn't in the budget and it wasn't possible for me to work them on this project, so both myself and the writer were left hanging and the writer wasn't allowed to hire a photographer for his story. We were both fuming.

In a bit of heated frustration called up my driver and went straight to the Mianyang Football Stadium, just two hours from Chengdu. It was the only place I could visit that was close by, that I hadn't already been, and it meant I could still salvage a day. As it turns out I was able to literally walk right in to the stadium without anyone asking me for any credentials or ID. When I arrived I was floored by just how many people where living in the stadium. Most of the survivors from the Beichuan area ended up here, some 25,000 of them. Kids were in school (see HERE), people were getting food handouts (see HERE) and everyone seemed to have a place to rest (see HERE). The football stadium was an incredible exercise in scale. And I was amazed at how well organized it seemed to be. The children went to school in shifts, there were medical staff, mobile phone stands, basketball courts and even a little playground for the kids to play on. The government had turned the stadium in to an apartment complex and people were getting, in my opinion, great care. China in the first week of this disaster responded very quickly and got a lot of good things done. Of course there were mistakes and problems but in a disaster of this scale, over 5 million homeless and 80,000 dead, I don't know how any country could have performed better. One only has to remember New Orleans as an example of how not to respond to a natural disaster.

The next morning no assignments had materialized and no one seemed to have any interested in purchasing my images, I packed up my bag, checked out of the hotel and went to the airport and got on the first flight back to Shanghai; much to my wife's pleasure. I had spent six days working hard with no backing and I had just had an assignment fall through. I had visited most of the worst hit areas, Wenchuan the epicenter was only accessible by helicopter so that wasn't an option. I visited four towns in four days, as well as the football stadium, and thought that I had seen much and documented a lot. Wondering what more I could visit or get access to without further resources left me guessing. My experience had been positive, giving the horrific circumstances of what I was witnessing. The government and military had been very helpful providing access to sites and the rescue workers and doctors and nurses behaved with selfless determination. It was remarkable to witness. I was proud to have made an effort.

I was back in Shanghai for all of 24hrs when I got a call from MSNBC.com asking me if I was still in Sichuan; they had been getting my emails but were slow to pull the trigger on an assignment. I said I wasn't in Sichuan but ended up back on a plane that night. After spending one night with my wife in Shanghai I was back in the Shangri-la in Chengdu awaiting further instructions. At least these time I would have more of an agenda and be working with a writer and my expenses were covered. This was a huge relief, and I was more determined then ever to get cracking.

The writer I was working with was keen to get the epicenter, and we hired just the right four-wheel drive SUV to get us there. The first destination was Yingxiu and the journey to get to this town was about four hours and it was a treacherous ride as much of the road had been destroyed from land slides, even several bridges and expresses ways had collapsed (see HERE). Upon getting to Yingxiu we were told that there was no way to go further by road, landslides had blocked the access. So we reported from Yingxiu and explored this devastated city. It was in much worse shape then Beichuan and had been much harder to reach. I had seen little reporting from this city and it was obvious why, because the road had just opened and there wasn't much left to report, it had become a ghost town. An image from Yingxiu can be found HERE, I feel with this image I was I was able to capture the helicopter the solider and the mangled buildings all in one; hopefully providing the image viewer with an idea of the devastation. The piece published by MSNBC is HERE.

While were in Yingxiu, and for two or three days prior to that, it had been circulating that schools throughout the whole region had collapsed and some 10,000 children may have died as a result of shoddy school construction. In many towns and cities schools had collapsed while other buildings in the area had stayed standing. Our next assignment was a memorial at a middle school in Juyuan. An image from Juyuan can be found HERE, the emotion of the day was simply overwhelming. The piece published by MSNBC is HERE

One image that didn't make publication can be seen HERE, a disinfectant truck had shown up at the exact same time as the memorial for the grieving parents and a man in a white coat, seemingly in charge, had try to usher parents away from the collapsed school. He gave up trying to move people but it was a despicable attempt to brush aside the memorial, and if you think it was just an honest coincidence that a disinfectant truck had showed up at the exact same time as a memorial, then you haven't been following China long enough.

I completed other mini-features on the Ziping Dam, which I blogged about a few months back (see HERE) and an ancient temple that was completely smashed by the quake. And that was pretty much the extent of my experience in the quake zone. Now I also visited tent cities and temporary housing centers, which you can find above, but most of the fuller essays were completed in the first few days.

I can say two things about my experience covering the natural disaster in Sichuan. The first is that the freedom that I moved around with the first week was severely hindered the second week as the shoddy school construction story broke. All of a sudden people didn't want to talk to us. The government was threatening parents who had lost children not to talk to us. There were new road blocks emerging in certain zones of the disaster area. The working enivornment really turned from week one to week two; and I was saddened by that. It is just another example of the government not being able to deal with the truth in any way shape or form. My hope is that they'll be able to overcome this at some stage of the country's development, but I'm not holding my breath. The second lesson I learned is that as a photographer you can never, ever wait for the phone to ring. Wow, I learned that in spades on this story and I take that experience to heart. The wheels of publications move slowly and a freelance photographer should never let the lack of funding stop them from working, some stories need to be told and even in a situation of media saturation, like a natural disaster, I still feel there is space for freelance story telling. It's true that having the funds may often hold us back, but if the money is there and the story is something your passionate about you just have to go. I don't know who coined the phase "95% of life is just showing up", well that can't be more true for a photographer. If you get yourself to where you can make interesting and emotional images, then you've done the hard part. Squeezing the shutter button is often the easiest aspect of working in situations like this.

ONE YEAR LATEROne year later what exactly have seen happen? Well several Chinese photographers were rewarded with World Press Photography awards in the most recent competition for their coverage of the quake, there work was incredible. The AP staff team won a pulitzer for their coverage of the quake, also very strong images. Ai Wei, a famous Chinese artist, as spoken out against the corruption in the region on his BLOG and this ARTICLE in the New York Times explains that situation. Basically Ai Wei is China's most famous artist, helping design the Olympic Stadium or the Bird's nest. He comes from a famous linage of poets and artists and he has been disgusted with the coverup of the school collapses and shoddy construction. He is in the process of trying to collect the exact names of all the children who died so that he can use it to create a project or memorial; these attempts hit a road block when in mid-April some of his researchers were arrested in the quake zone for asking too many questions.

The Chinese government has closed off the region for the one year anniversary, only those with official press credentials are allowed to visit and I'm sure those foreign journalists will be restricted in what they can see or do. A recent report indicated that journalists from several major news organizations had been harassed and intimidated while trying to report on the school collapses, and still grieving parents. The fear is that too many survivors will open up and talk of official corruption and the slow moving recovery efforts. I'll be watching the news and looking for blogs that report from the zone, it'll be interesting to try and gauge the frustration of the local people.

My plans are to return to the region, at some stage. I'll be looking for the right story or the right moment and while I don't know what that is, I know that the one year anniversary just isn't the right time.

Thursday, May 07, 2009

I'm very pleased, and honored, to be included in this year's Flash Forward Emerging Photographer list which is complied by the Magenta Foundation, a Arts Publishing group based in Canada. See the FULL LIST HERE.

For those of you who are not too familiar with the Magenta Foundation, the Flash Forward showcases the future of photography, focusing on emerging talent that jurors have identified as having great potential. There will be an initial exhibition and book launch will be held at Lennox Contemporary in Toronto, in October 2009. Other exhibitions will be announced later.

Well, if my first blog about the destruction of Kashgar didn't get your attention, this one well. It appears that the Chinese government has rapidly increased their speed of the destruction of Kashgar's old town. About 2/3 of Kashgar's old town has been destroyed in the last few weeks. Above, an old man limps through the old town.

Read the story below:_________________________________________China razes the cradle of a culture

Paul Mooney, Foreign Correspondent

An Uighur man sits on the pavement in the Old Town of Kashgar, under threat of demolition from the Chinese.

Paul Mooney for The National

KASHGAR, CHINA // An old way of life is coming to a crashing end in north-western China with two-thirds of Kashgar’s Old City being bulldozed over the past few weeks under a government plan to “modernise” the area.The few remaining houses still standing are marked with an ominous-looking Chinese character written in red with a circle drawn around it. The character, pronounced “chai” in Chinese, means demolish.

A government plan worth US$440 million (Dh1.6 billion) calls for the relocation of 65,000 Uighur households, about 220,000 people, whose families have lived in the Old City for centuries. Until a few weeks ago, the area housed 40 per cent of the city’s residents in its labyrinth-like alleyways, where the naturalness of the life made it a popular tourist destination and one that was not ruined by tourism.For centuries, children played on the cobblestone streets of the Old City, mothers standing in the doorways of their mud-brick dwellings chatting with neighbours, their faces covered by scarves. Bearded men wearing embroidered doppas (skullcaps) have walked daily to the many small neighbourhood mosques that pepper the area for prayers, passing by coppersmiths hammering pieces of metal into shiny pots, butchers cutting lamb in the open air and bakers slapping traditional flatbreads on to the sides of a tandoor, a makeshift clay oven.

According to the state media, the ancient district – which provided the exotic backdrop for Kabul in the movie The Kite Runner – chosen for its close resemblance to that vibrant Afghan city of the 1970s must be torn down because of poor drainage, unsound construction and susceptibility to earthquakes.

Irritated residents claim the government made no attempt to discuss the demolition plan with them or to consider other ways of dealing with the problems.The Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking Muslim group, have long resented Chinese rule of Xinjiang, which they call East Turkestan. Wang Lequan, the Xinjiang party secretary, announced in March during a visit to Kashgar and Hotan that the two cities were at the “forefront of the fight against the three evil forces of terrorism, extremism and separatism”.

Some Uighurs argue the demolition is part of an orchestrated campaign by the Chinese government to destroy Uighur culture.“The Old City in Kashgar represents the very essence of Uighur civilisation for thousands of years,” said Rebiya Kadeer, the president of the Uyghur American Association. “The Uighurs consider Kashgar the cradle of Uighur civilisation.

“By destroying Kashgar, the Chinese government will make all East Turkestan cities and towns look just like all other Chinese cities and towns along the east coast. Once Kashgar is destroyed, the unique Uighur and Central Asian character of East Turkestan will become history.”There are also concerns about how people will earn a living once they are moved far from the centre of tourism – the government plan apparently does not include any mention of job creation. The Uighur community already faces high unemployment rates in the face of government-encouraged migration of Han Chinese from other parts of the country, who have an advantage in competing for jobs.

“If they are going to move to another location, then what they will do for a living?” Mrs Kadeer said. “The housing arrangements and the traditional craftsmanship businesses are interconnected in the old district of Kashgar.”People in the Old City, as in other parts of Xinjiang, are afraid of speaking out, but snippets of conversations with old residents show widespread feelings of frustration combined with resignation. “It’s a headache for everyone,” said one 70-year-old man. “Mei banfa, mei banfa,” he continued in fluent Chinese. “There’s nothing we can do, nothing we can do.” He said his family had lived in the Old City for three generations.A man sitting beside him pushed his two hands in a downward motion and mimicked government officials, who have told him to “move, move, move”.

Both men say they have no idea where exactly they will be moved to and they say no one has talked to them about compensation for their property.

A businessman sitting in a coffee shop on the edge of the Old City said people did not care about being compensated. “Money is not important to them right now,” he said. “For them what’s important is that they were born here and grew up here.”He then expressed a common concern. “Living in a new apartment building, there is no community feeling; you don’t have contact with anyone. The doors in the Old City are always open and everyone knows each other. “I don’t want to leave,” he said, his face showing anger. Foreign experts play down arguments that the demolition is politically motivated.

“I don’t see it as a deliberate attack on Uighur culture, but part of China’s policy to modernise and develop,” said Dru Gladney, the president of the Pacific Basin Institute and an expert on Xinjiang. He said it had more to do with cultural insensitivity than politics.“The problem is that there is very little plumbing; the electricity is dangerous and it’s in an earthquake zone,” Mr Gladney said. “So you can understand why planners would want to bulldoze it.”

Still, Mr Gladney conceded the loss of the area was sad – and common throughout China. “It does show a cultural insensitivity for Uighurs, who already feel embattled and threatened. Kashgar will never be the same without the quarter.”Locals scoff at the claims about safety, saying that the damage to the local housing had been minimal in recent earthquakes and that these old structures had fared better than modern ones.

“There was an earthquake in 2004, but none of the houses in the Old City collapsed,” the businessman said. “People in the Old City believe that the old houses are stronger than modern buildings being built. They’ve survived for hundred of years.” Ronald Knapp, a professor emeritus at State University of New York, said there had been some loss of life from cave-ins of adobe structures over the centuries, but Sichuan’s problems seemed to have resulted “more from very poor ‘modern’ construction rather than the shortcomings of traditional practices”.The government said it would turn a small remaining area into a tourist centre, where it would create an “international heritage scenery” to increase tourism. A recent statement by the Uyghur American Association said there was no indication yet as to who would benefit from a “Chinese-managed Kashgar Old City”. The association expressed a fear that the small remaining section “will take on the characteristics of an open-air museum of Uighur culture, where once a vibrant community lived”.________________________________________

Wednesday, May 06, 2009

It would appear, according to a domestic newspaper story, that senior party officials in provinces across China have been asked by the central government in Beijing to meet with petitioners about complains in an effort to help reduce social disputes and civil unrest, as well as help stem the flow of petitioners to Beijing from the provinces. See the Story Link Here.

Social unrest is, without a doubt, the number one concern in the eyes of government officials throughout the country. Some people out there might question my saying that, but every economic policy that comes out has the effect of quelling some possible protest somewhere.

Social unrest is common occurrence in China, even though protests or demonstrations are officially illegal. Therefore regular people have no outlet for their dissatisfaction of local government officials; close your eyes and image an old fashioned kettle boiling up and whistling away with steam pipping out. It is easy to see how people can see that aggressive, desperate action is the only action.

But in a year of the 60th anniversary of the People's Republic of China, the government is trying to show the people that while the party is unelected, they are responsible and they care. It's far fetched, but even a bit of dialog is better than the thuggish bullying, ignoring and imprisonment that has been the unofficial policy for the last two decades. You see most government officials get a report card at the end of every year and social unrest in a region under your watch is highly frowned upon, so everything is done to avoid the people taking to the streets.

In several extreme cases it is reported that people traveling with petitions, or official complaints, to Beijing from their province are often caught and jailed without trial; in an effort to keep Beijing officials in the dark about what is actually happening in the countryside. A nasty side effect of virtual independence, by local officials, to run their fiefdom as they see fit. In one banner case last year the New York Times wrote of a local official who was arresting petitioners, who were trying to out government officials on illegal land seizures and pollution, and sending them in to psychiatric hospitals. A page straight out of Stalin's book, the only problem is that this is 2009 and that kind of behavior shouldn't be acceptable for leading government officials in an emerging super power, and owner of the world's third largest economy. But as long as China continues to buy US treasury bills, mum's the word.

So in an effort to calm the extremes the party leadership in Beijing is trying to create a communications bridge between upset folks and their government officials, essentially this is the only option in a country that has a one party system that also dominates the legal system. Will it work? My guess is no. I don't think government officials have the right set of morals or characteristics to be sensitive to these cases; in most cases they'll be brushed off as impediments to progress and GDP growth. A painful and short sighted view, but as someone on the ground I just can't see things changing much.

An old political philosophy professor at the University of Toronto used to always tell me that "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely...", a line from Lord Acton in his open letter to Bishop Creighton in 1887. And in the case of China this phrase nails it. Chinese officials operate in a world with no political competition, no media freedom, as well as control of the banks, police and courts. If that is not absolute power what is?

Monday, May 04, 2009

I feel a bit naive for only having been introduced to Danny Lyon's work about a year ago. But a recent New York Times article (which can be found HERE) sheds light on a photographer who "stubbornly practices his principles". If you read on, he basically comes across as a hard nose photographer who bends for no one; and I love that.

Danny's work, at the time was perceived as "new photojournalism"; the key was he aimed his camera at people and situations people often didn't want to see. He focused on life in prison, motorcycle gangs, the poor, people who lived in the inner city. It was, in his eyes, an attempt to document the real USA, to expose humanity.

Self confessed to being "Pretty uncompromising and not very commercial", I think he is representative of a lot of idealistic photographers who work on non-commercial projects because they feel that these stories are important to tell. I myself have been engaged in a whole series of projects in China, and India, that have never seen the light of day; but even knowing that I would still have done everything the same. Some stories need to be told. Some situations need to be witnessed, exposed, discussed and publicized in order to be better understood.

One of the great quotes to come out of this article is when Danny says: “You put a camera in my hand, I want to get close to people, not just physically close, emotionally close, all of it. It’s part of the process." I really love that, and it's true. There is a real bond between photographer and subject, on that I often strive for in much of my work as well.

Danny doesn't have a website with all this work available but if you do a google search you'll come across enough galleries and educational establishments that have links to his incredible collection of work.

Friday, May 01, 2009

I know this topic has already made it's way around the blogs, but I'm still disgusted by the ruling. The "A Photo Editor" Blog reported a few weeks back that photographer Chris Usher was in a legal battle with Corbis, who somehow misplaced some 12, 640 negatives. Now, it turns out this Chris won this case in November 2007, and the exact compensation was supposed to be declared at a later date, but it was ruled that Corbis was at fault. Well, the compensation decided was US$7 per image; in other words Chris lost his appeal for greater compensation.

While US$7 per image, or US$88,000 may seem like a lot of money to some folks, it is peanuts for what 12,640 strong images can earn in the right image archive over 10 or 20 years. It's not uncommon to sell a stock image for US$200 to a publication, and then the next month sell it again for US$150 to another publication. So the life span of an image, and the income a photographer can earn from that, is a long long time. Which is one reason why we work so damn hard.

This ruling now basically gives precedence to any further ruling of a similar kind. That basically means that any magazine, newspaper or agency that asks you to hand over your negatives can neglect to care for them and basically get away with it with a slap on the wrist, or US$7 per image - which is peanuts.

I can't tell you how disgusted this ruling makes me feel. Everywhere I turn in the last few months I just see photographers taking a shit kicking.

I've had magazines in the past ask me for my negatives and I've blatantly refused on every occasion; and this kind of case just reinforces my decision. My negatives are my negatives, and if a court of law isn't going to bother protecting a photographers negatives from poor business practice, poor organization and complete disregard, then you should never hand them over - ever.

No one is going to care for your negatives as well as you do, so passing them over to someone else just opens the door for an accident to happen. Hold your negatives dear to your heart, and never let them go unless someone is willing to pry them out of your cold, dead hand. Isn't that the slogan from the National Rifles Association?

Extreme, perhaps. Like I said with my opening, I'm disgusted by this ruling, and it's embarrassing to an agency like Corbis which was created to protect image rights and share in the profit, with photographers, of properly managing the rights to large image archives.

Blackstar have a some great background on the case on their BLOG. Enjoy the read. And, do you know where your negatives are tonight? Bloody nightmare.

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About Me

My name is Ryan Pyle. I am a Canadian born documentary photographer. I have been living and working in China since 2001.
Formal Education: University of Toronto: International Politics.
Recent Editorial Clients: Wall Street Journal, TIME, Newsweek, New York Times, Fortune, Outside Magazine, Foreign Policy Magazine, The Sunday Times Magazine, Der Spiegel, Stern.